Thank you everyone for the reviews, they make my day! :) Batfangirl, your prize for guessing the Note-Writer correctly is: a one-shot fic! With two characters I know you like! ;) Check my profile for your reward fic "The Great Glove-Off" and Congratulations! :D
A/N: I don't own Batman. They'd throw me in Arkham if I said that...
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Redemption, Restitution, & Resurrection
-Chapter Twelve: ASCENSION-
Cold. So cold.
The texture beneath her fingertips suggested snow. But how? It was still autumn in the field. There was a distant roaring sound, like the wind howling through a cave. Her skin prickled.
Slowly Danielle opened her eyes. The nausea that swept through her made her close them again immediately.
Where was she?
She had caught a glimpse of a strange white haze, floating down from overhead. The light was weird. Was she… dead after all? Was she in heaven?
She bolted upright, her eyes flying open. Two things immediately registered.
The white haze was snow.
She was on a mountain!
Her stomach lurched as she registered just how high up she was. How…? How was she here? She scanned her environment carefully for clues.
This place was… beautiful. Ethereally so. And strangely familiar. Pure white snowflakes drifted down effortlessly, like falling cherry blossom petals. Crags of dark glittering rock peered out from the snow drift. She took a deep breath; the air smelled so clean, so unlike Gotham. The wind tousled her hair lightly.
Am I dreaming?
Cautiously she raised a hand to test the illusion. A snowflake landed softly on her cupped palm. The coldness was delicious and very real.
She staggered to her feet and looked around.
No one there. No demonic scarecrow riding a black mount. No signs of humanity either...
Wait. Is that a trail?
There were footsteps in the snow, several pairs, leading up the mountain. "HELLO!" Her voice echoed.
No answer.
She hesitated. Should I follow the footprints? Or should I try to get off the mountain? She looked down...
"AAAAHHH!" She fell to the ground and clutched it with both arms.
There was no base of the mountain! Danielle couldn't believe her eyes. Instead of land stretching out, the slopes dropped off into…nothingness! It was as if a big vortex lay directly beneath them, sucking in bits of snow and rock that fell down. She could see the golden eye of the vortex swirling faster and faster. Bile rose in her throat and she shivered uncontrollably. She didn't even want to imagine what would happen if she fell.
Fearfully, she craned her head up, looking for an escape, a safe place...
There! On the very top of the mountain… The sky was full of grey clouds, and against a small patch of them… There was a thin circle of light, with a dark shape inside. Almost like a beacon.
She squinted to make out the shape. It looked like… a bat!
Her eyes widened. Somehow, inexplicably, the Bat-Signal was up there on the mountain's summit!
Could it be Batman's footprints leading up the mountain? She felt a surge of hope.
"I don't know where I am, or what that's doing here," she murmured to herself. "Nothing makes sense anymore…" She looked up, determination in her eyes. "But I have to get to that Bat-Signal! I just know it! Somehow… maybe the Batman will see it… and save me…"
She glanced over her shoulder. For the smallest second, she had heard a voice on the wind, laughing softly.
But no. Couldn't be. There was no one else here.
One thing did bother her as she began to ascend. The footprints were leading up the mountain… but none were leading back down.
"Keep going, my dear."
His victim struggled to move forward. It was a slow, agonizing walk, like a marionette rebelling against its strings. Her body wanted to shut down. With the delicious, overwhelming fear, it would sooner hibernate. But that wouldn't do. She wouldn't die right away if she did that. And she needed to die soon.
Scarecrow listened to the words that burst from closed lips: "Batman… help me…"
He chortled. "He can't hear you, my dear! By the time he learns what has happened to you - and he will - it will be too late! Will that scare him? Knowing just how close he was to saving one more life? Will he fear his touch is slipping?"
He hoped that Batman had examined the notes himself. Scarecrow relished in the thought of causing the Batman a few nightmares.
What was the girl dreaming of? A world without Batman possibly? Or maybe a world of her students, all dead, and she helpless to stop it?
It wouldn't be the first time he had killed a self-defense teacher. Her predecessor was even more dedicated to the cause. She had been the creator and director of a great many programs at Gotham General Hospital, including the original self-defense class. Lies! That's what they were. As if that pathetic class could ever truly save the students from their demons… The bullies who kept tormenting them. Scarecrow gritted his teeth under his mask. A flash of himself, poor, tall, skinny, bullied - and then back to the present.
There was only one thing in the world that could master the bullies. Fear. Fear could master everyone.
Even the great Batman.
He remembered Batman's subtle fear as he passed through his boat in the harbor, during the infamous Arkham City days. That was what had given him the inspiration for his latest toxin - something that could break the mind over a longer period of time, provided it was used in the correct concentration. Sometimes it paid to be subtle. And in the case of his employer, who wanted drugs that could be used ideally for interrogations, being subtle paid very well.
He would gain the funds to continue his research. He would develop new strains of his toxin, until far and wide, he would be renowned at the All-Terrible God of Fear.
He began to hum, and a smile graced his masked face:
"Row row row your boat,
Gently down the stream,
Merrily merrily merrily merrily,
Life is but a dream."
Past rocks sculpted by ice, she climbed. The air was slowly getting thinner up here.
"Mmmhehehe…"
She turned her head for the half-dozenth time. The wind was chuckling again. She decided there must be a cave of some sort nearby; the wind must be making a strange noise as it whistled through.
She ignored the prickling in her stomach.
"How'd I get up here anyway?" she wondered. "One minute I'm running from a demonic scarecrow, and the next-" She looked down again at the nothingness beneath the mountain, and finally one thing seemed to make sense. "Wait a minute… This isn't normal! I am dreaming!" She smiled in relief. "I'm in bed, safe at home, and none of this is really happening. This is a very strong dream, isn't it?" In an instant, she realized why this place seemed so familiar. "Oh my god…"
Over three years ago, while she was training to defend herself from Zsasz… There was a recurring dream she used to have.
"I am the mountain!"
She looked around frantically. There should be a cherry box close to here, with an enso symbol carved into the wood. What was inside the box? She couldn't remember!
Up ahead was a curve in the rock. She stopped in her tracks. Sniffed the air deeply. It smelled like-
Her heart rated jumped.
-Burning.
She started to tremble; she could see the reddish glow already. But her feet moved forward to confirm what she knew to be true.
When she rounded the corner, her mouth parted in horror. "Oh my god…"
The sky was on fire.
Danielle fell to her knees, shivering and clutching her chest.
The wintry white beauty of the mountain was burning - tainted, stripped away, ruined! What was once pure snow was now stained crimson. Ribbons of gore cascaded down from the hellish skies, cinders and lava sizzling and turning to sleet as they hit the frozen earth around her, scorching it, bleeding through the snow like rain - the unending fight between fire and water. Steam rose in the air. The ground was smeared and blackened with ashes.
Danielle stumbled backward onto her butt, shielding her face with a shaking arm. There was nowhere to hide! The sky was raining fire, and her mountain was in pain, bleeding, under attack! She knew that, unlike last time, the mountain was't erupting. "There is an evil here," she whispered through lips that were too parched, "An evil did this." And yet in spite of the bloody ruin, snowflakes still drifted down, both soot and crystals mingling in her eyelashes and with her tears.
It was as if heaven and hell were encountering each other here. Purgatory.
I need to get to the Bat-Signal quickly!
She was looking up, trying to spot it, when the clouds parted.
Amidst the hellish red sky, she could see the moon, pale and lovely, with the rainbow ringing it, casting a strange light over the mountain. There was something wrong. The moon was too big—
"Oh… There you are!"
That voice! As Danielle watched in horror, a giant hand suddenly came from the sky.
BOOM! The land shook. The hand had wedged itself in the earth. It wasn't an ordinary hand, she saw. On the tips of the fingers, there were needles, filled with a golden liquid - now embedded in the ground. She could hear the hiss as the liquid pumped in, like poison. Rage and dread filled her. How dare he infect her mountain?!
She knew who it was - not only by the voice, but by the terror that filled her heart.
She watched in disbelief as the scarecrow from the pumpkin field, now huge, loomed in front the moon. He was so big that she could only see his jack-o-lantern's face, still flaming. His eyes, like searchlights, found her.
Danielle screamed.
The flaming pumpkin-head chortled and the beams from his eyes swept straight toward her. She jumped out of the way. She felt rather than saw the ground erupt, the beam cutting through snow and rock in an explosion. It could have been her!
Luckily there was a ridge beneath the slope. She ducked. The search beams moved over her head. And then, to her horror, Danielle realized that the snow at her feet was evaporating! The ground was burning where the lights from the scarecrow's eyes gazed.
"Silly teacher came to teach…" the malevolent voice boomed over the roaring winds. "Little students came to learn…"
Her head snapped up. How did-?
And then, in a burst of clarity, everything made sense.
I'm being chased by a… a demonic scarecrow… That's it! This whole time…! It was so obvious she almost slapped herself. Scarecrow… My mystery Note Writer is the Scarecrow! He's after me just like he went after Mrs. Phillips' friend, the original self-defense teacher! She was trying to warn me! The very first time she had ever met Mrs. Phillips, the dear old secretary had said that Scarecrow had murdered her friend. Her eyes stung thinking of her now. And now he got me trapped in his nightmare world! I need to get out of here!
The searchlights continued to burn at her feet, while terror pounded through her.
I need to get to that Bat-Signal! A surge of determination filled her. If this is Scarecrow's world… Then all my worst fears must be in here. And because it's his world, whatever he's scared of is in here too. Why else would the Bat-Signal be here? He's scared of Batman. She just knew it. I need to call Batman!
The ridge above her head was burning. She could smell her hair smoking.
Ready…now!
She jumped and landed several feet below, on a lower shelf covered with white snow. She looked up in relief. The scorching spotlights couldn't reach her. As she waited, the spotlights eventually went away - no doubt to look elsewhere for her.
She blinked. She had landed in a patch of flowers sticking up through the snow. She paused - she usually loved flowers - but there was something strange about these ones. Maybe it was the spiny bracts - they looked sinister. Or maybe it was the deep shade of blue the petals were, almost poisonous. They looked like a poppy of some sort.
There's nothing wrong with these flowers. I'm getting paranoid.
She had crushed one underneath her. She picked it up thoughtfully.
A skull. She dropped it in alarm. For a moment, she had glimpsed a small black skull in the center of the flower, where the pistil ought to be.
Just a hallucination, she told herself shakily.
Beyond the patch of blue flowers, there was a trail. It led past a bowl with a frozen lake. The area was low enough that she wouldn't be caught in the Scarecrow's gaze.
She crouched and crept along. Blue flowers lined the path. She tried not to look at them.
BOOM!
Something huge hit the ground above - she was sure she could guess what. Even though she couldn't see the demonic Scarecrow, the rocky ledge shook. She lost her footing.
"Who-o-aa!" Crack!
Dazed, she registered the sharp noise. She ran her hands frantically over her body. No injuries, though she was sore all over. A moment later, she realized where she was.
She was on the ice. And the cracking noise was the sound of the ice breaking-
Crunch! For him, the sound seemed to echo in the darkness.
She had finally reached the glass from the broken window. He had shattered it during his break-in. It was easy to sneak into her building, ride the elevator to the top floor, and descend from the rooftop using the fire escape. The hard part had been reaching through the sliding window and pushing over the bookshelves without cutting himself on the sharp shards of glass, but he managed.
Her body quivered as the glass embedded itself in her foot, stabbing through the sole of her shoe. Blood smeared the floor in the wake of her gait. But she kept walking, heedlessly, as more glass met her path, the first piece plunging in deeper with each step-
"HAH!" The Scarecrow's laughter carried on the wind.
BOOM! FTT! FTT! SSSS!
Beyond the frozen lake was a patch of snow, maybe a meadow. She was so sure that the Scarecrow couldn't see down here. And yet there was his giant gloved hand, pumping into the frozen ground beneath the drift, turning the snow a vile yellow. As Danielle watched in horror, the yellow snow changed colors, first moss green, then brown, then rotting black. The hand withdrew, leaving four smoking holes, but she didn't dare move-
She was slowing down. Was her body becoming aware of the external pain? Not good. A little further and it would be alright, but for now, it was too soon.
He jabbed her arm with his needles. Just a sip more, slip back under my control-
The snow was writhing!
A hand stuck up, all grey bones. Danielle's heart hammered in her throat. Four skeletons digging, pulling themselves out from their rest. Created by Scarecrow.
Flesh began to grow on their bones. Four identical opponents, each bearing knives.
Four Zsaszes smiled at Danielle eerily and began to cross the frozen lake.
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A/N: I apologize if this chapter is jumpy. No quiet time here lately, so it's been a lot harder to focus when writing. Did anyone recognize the blue flowers from Batman Begins in this chapter? ;)
Almost forgot: Happy Father's Day everyone!